Friday, March 7, 2008

Charles Darden is Director of Music of the Anglican Church, and Director of La Chorale DeBons Choeurs, on the island of St. Barts in the Caribbean French West Indies. He is a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He grew up in California and was the founder and conductor of the Berkeley Free Orchestra. In 1970, Seiji Ozawa appointed him ApprenticeConductor to the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Later, he was twice a Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra where he studied with Leonard Bernstein. In 1975, Lorin Maazel appointed him Conducting Assistant to the Cleveland Orchestra. He was later appointed Musical Director of the Ballet Rambert in London and later Principal Conductor of the Dance Theater of Harlem in New York. He was a frequent guest conductor in Europe, primarily in Norway, where he was a regular conductor with the Den Norske Opera. He is an accomplished pianist and has appeared as Jasbo Brown in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Porgy and Bess. Mr. Darden is an authority on the life and music of the ragtime composer Scott Joplin. He wrote the one-man show Great Scott! outlining the life of the ragtime composer Scott Joplin. In 1999, he produced L'Hymne à St. Barthélemy, the island's own national anthem. Mr. Darden presently divides his time between St. Barts and New York. He has appeared as pianist/singer in a number of first class hotels around the world before coming to St. Barts. These include the Noga Hilton in Cannes, France, the Renaissance Hotel in Hong Kong, and the Colombo Hilton in Sri Lanka.